Dave The Seeker wrote:I am having a really hard time with one person in particular though.I have seen this person handle mentally handicapped people in a rough way, more than once.I have restrained myself from acting on this, which I know was a good thing. As I would have hurt him quite badly.He has also bragged and shown me animals he's shot, some of them mother racoons, who's babies I've tried to feed when I find where they are.

"When I see ill-natured people,Overwhelmed by wrong deeds and pain,May I cherish them as something rare,As though I had found a previous jewel"-Geshe Langritangpa

An excellent opportunity to practice!

Dave The Seeker wrote:Also I have read about the equalizing and exchanging self and other, but in my thinking, if one does not have compassion as is found in the first step of the seven, what will happen when the person that is/was causing you a 'problem' pops back in the picture? Won't one really fall right back to needing to do the first step of the seven?

Nah, Compassion arises because both of you are just labels. Only suffering exists (in the minds of beings). There is no difference between your suffering and his. It's just suffering.

Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

As Shantideva explains, now we’re basing our concept of “me” on the basis of pieces of somebody else’s body, something that has grown from the sperm and the egg of two other people. It’s not from my own sperm or egg. Basically we’re taking care of something that came from somebody else’s body. So what’s the difference between that and taking care of anybody’s body that has come from other people’s bodies? What is the difference between wiping our own running nose with our finger and wiping the running nose of our baby with our finger, both of which we’re willing to do if necessary; but how is that different from wiping the nose of the drunk lying on the street? As Shantideva says, suffering is to be removed, not because it’s my suffering, or your suffering, but suffering is to be removed simply because it’s suffering and it hurts. So, Shantideva says, suffering has no owner. Just as we can take care of “me” on the basis of this singular body, we can also similarly take care of “me,” in a sense, on the basis of everybody’s bodies.

http://tinyurl.com/bw5sw45

Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."